It's Tick Season

I am running a little late today blogging. The day was so busy that until about an hour ago I had no plans of blogging today but I thought, why not it's a nice 84° tonight so I grabbed the camera and put these together. Then while I was looking in my photo library for a certain photo, I got lost in the folder I call "My Pics" and looked at too many. It is hard to stay out of the past sometimes when photos are involved. I posted a few of them at the bottom of this post.

It's Summer Again In 'The Tropics'

I knew when Heidi jumped off the couch, rolled once on the floor and popped right back up barking to herself, that summer had come back for one final time and it had to be above 70°. With an overwhelming demand to be fed lunch kibble, it was served almost at 1pm in preparation for the time change in the near future. I hope by the time it gets too cold to paint, I finish my paint prep, put on some primer and paint the trim in the carport. Probably tomorrow after lunch in the sunshine it will be "Operation Dog Nails" and Heidi's will have hers trimmed back as much as possible.

Stella is never too anxious to do anything after lunch. She does not even follow Sadie into the field nor Heidi who takes a lap around the house. All Stella wants after she eats is to be back inside for an afternoon siesta.

When the weather is warm Heidi likes to find a spot in the sun, away from the bloodhounds where she can relax, sleep and soak of some of the sun's ray's. She would for an hour today, doing just that, while the 3 of us were inside.

With perfect weather outside I formed up a game plan over a few games of Mahjong. I improved my times on three different games, getting each of them completed in less than three minutes and one finished in 2 minutes 47 seconds. Since I knew I could not beat that time today ... it was time to take Sadie and Stella for their afternoon walk ... then mow the yard.

The butterfly population double today to 2. I couldn't catch the other one with my camera but I was able to find one. It spreading it's wings to my camera lens never worked out today ... poor timing.

When it's 75°, a slow walk and nice green grass, Stella can always find time to sit for a quick scratch.

Sadie got a little extra exercise in this afternoon with some hard jogging.

I never found anything too scary about my lower lip becoming numb. 200mg of Ibuprofen fixed it. I heard that my friends Apple Mail that disappeared last night finally finished synchronizing with Gmail and so far everything was working again.

I think it's encouraging when I type a question into search on the internet, to see there is usually another million people that have searched the same topic you have, even it is a problem where a solution is needed.

The yard looks good again, cut even. Since I reinstalled the older blade, that terrible sound with my mower I had last week was gone today. So instead of buying a new mower next spring it sounds like this one is good for another ten years.

It's too nice to be inside writing this ... so I am stopping here and heading back outside to sit and contemplate whether I build a huge fire tomorrow by burning the tall pile of dead tree limbs and leaves that went with those tree limbs. I imagine the final decision will be made by which direction the wind is blowing ... I want to burn only the pile of limbs, the the woods behind it.

You cannot beat this 75° weather today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Changed Their Strategy Today

With the upper right corner of my computer monitor showing me it's already Friday, I have only 7.5 hours to get anything finished today before my life stops for another weekend college football marathon. Throw in the MLB playoff games, and the NFL games, the hound walks between games or at halftimes, eat a little ... there isn't much time for sleep or house cleaning until early next week. The hounds never are pressed for time ... ever.

While I am always changing my mind or never coming to a firm decision on things, the hounds always know what they want to do ... eat, sleep, take walks and repeat. So our morning started out normal with hopes of sunshine today so I can mow the lawn. Due to the recent rain and overcast skies with cooler temps ... it has changed from "mowing the leaves" a week ago to "mowing the yard and leaves" this afternoon ... the grass has grown a lot this week.

It might look like it was a pretty easy walk for me today after getting some unexpected running in yesterday afternoon as I chased the disappearing Stella. That was not the case this morning as the pictures do not tell the whole story 'behind the scenes'.

I think I would have rather been running after disappearing bloodhounds than doing all the 'verbal herding' I had to do this morning. I guess they do change some of their routine ... after a week of very little deer scat eating this morning it's all they did. No need to track new ATV tracks or new deer scent ... it was time to add a protein supplement to their diets and ignore all of my calls to "come on".

Herding usually is required when Stella goes in one direction while Sadie and I are going in a different direction. Yesterday proved it's best to try to keep both hounds in viewing range of my eyesight ... otherwise, I am jogging slowly after them as I feel every organ bouncing inside of me. Does a heart move because yesterday it certainly felt like it was coming out of my chest as I jogged then ran after Stella.

This was a key point in the walk this morning ... Stella wandering further away while Sadie had made the turn for home but still looking for more to eat. My friend told me a few weeks ago that scat has molasses in it thus why the hounds are addicted to eating it ... it's sweet, much like my addiction to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

It wasn't my voice that got them together, yet as I made the final turn home ... their desire of not having the other hound getting all of the good stuff, they merged into one area to share what Sadie had found. Luckily that was near my path as I walked home.

This picture shows the real definition of the word "ignore" ... Webster's Dictionary has it all wrong, Stella has the definition correct ... that is ignore me saying "come on", and eat as fast as possible before I try to lead her away by her collar.

Of coarse with that gentle tug of her collar and a lecture on the pros and cons of listening to "your owner" ... she and Sadie tear off into a 'happy-go-lucky' jog toward a new spot they know of way in front of me toward the middle of the lower field. So much for that lecture on obeying commands. I doubt that the bloodhound bred does well in any kind of dog obedience classes. I am too cheap to find out plus I like that they can have the freedom to do what they want ... so why am I complaining?  LOL

Only in my dreams would these two 'partners in crime' be running straight for the backyard and wait for my return.

No ... since their noses are some of the best of 70+ dog breeds, they already know where their next snack is and it's far enough away from me that they can eat as fast as possible before I get there. At first I thought they might be heading all the way to the neighbor's drainage ditch, that is always a favorite of Stella's after some rain.

Sadie was faking Stella out ... she led her toward the neighbors only to turn fast and run to a spot left of me, leaving Stella way off the pace. So once again I have two hounds in totally opposite directions with the house in view.

See what I mean about this walk being hard?

Stella was back to eating so fast that even my Nikon D3200 couldn't pick up the speed of her mouth and forehead moving as she gobbled as fast as possible. There is much more to the picture than meets the eye. It does not pick ups the sound of her gobbling.

As I stood in the yard finished with my walk ... I didn't yell since they were close but kept saying those infamous phrases of "come on" and "over here" ... then a few words that would require me to changed the settings of the blog to 'adult content'.

They become more interested in heading to the house when I mentioned 'we' had to mow the yard today after "Lunch" ... I have a feeling the words 'mowing the yard' wasn't what they heard. They know what "lunch" means.

I thought of waiting to post this and then add some afternoon shots to the post and more commentary but honestly I find it hard to post like that, plus I end up with too many photos for just one blog post. So I'll edit the photos and recheck the spelling before posting ... not a lot of time as Sadie and Stella are standing just to the right of my desk chair with drool hanging from the sides of their mouth ... because it's minutes away from noon and they haven't had lunch yet.

Pressure's on to finish this.

For those that have asked me this past week since restarting the blog on why I chose to go back to Blogger instead of Wordpress ... Using the free version of Wordpress lets them post advertising on my blog posts when I don't want advertising nor are those going to make me any affiliate income.

The main reason is, I wanted to keep the 6+ years of posts, comments and photos of the blog. I could upload the backup file into Blogger with no issues. If I were to try importing that same file to the free Wordpress blog, the different platforms don't play well together and a Wordpress Tech would have to edit the code to over a 1,000 posts for Wordpress accept the posts and photos.

If I were to pay for my own web hosting and use the Wordpress.org platform then there would be no issues importing the 1,000+ posts, along with comments and photos into that platform. But building that site would take more work than I am interested in doing and I can't see paying over $100 per year for website hosting where the blog is making me zero income. Nor do I want to have a blog for making income.

So ... I went back to blogger last Sunday, or first went to Google to establish a new email address for the blog log in and contact email ... then started the rebuilding process.

I added my own email address to follow this blog because I want to see what shows up in followers emails when I do any kind of corrections or changes to the post after I post it for the first time. I have a suspicion that every time I go back to correct spelling errors and click the update key, all of the email followers are getting a new email ... that's not good.

The sun is out so there's a good chance to mow this afternoon. I am going to try something new for the first time in 20 falls seasons at this house ... I am going to mow blowing the leaves and grass in just one direction toward the highway instead of mowing in a back and forth pattern or even in a square while blowing the leaves and grass to the center of the yard. It will take longer but should clean the leaves up better than just mulching them. In the back I will go one direction blowing mowed leaves and grass toward the field.

Can you tell I am trying to find a way to get out of raking leaves this year?

By the time I finish mowing and putting all the stuff backing my small shed, I'll be ready for another hound walk, some dinner and the MLB playoff game before watching the Washington State Cougars start their game at 10:45pm my time.

Well I have to go. The hounds are still staring at me and the drool is getting longer ... like glue.

Everything is fine in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.